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Run For Your Life, a Love Story

by John Argo

Wildest Ride You'll Ever Read—Don't Miss the Adrenalin Rocket Thrills

= 7. =

After dinner, they sauntered arm in arm down crowded streets filled with tourists.

Darkness fell amid a fireball of planetary sunlight that soaked Westwood Village and its environs in alien twilight. The planet seemed to roll in a sauce of lava. And yet nobody was burning, because they were native to this ecosphere like certain oddly shaped deep-sea urchins like to flutter across the mulmy plains of the abyssal deep, or high-flying eagles with white crew cuts brave the thin, cold air around the highest mountain peaks.

"Earth," Martin said. "Good place to call home."

She slipped a hand and strong little arm around his back and pulled tightly. "You say the strangest things, Martin."

"I do it all for you."

She laid her cheek against his chest as they walked. "I thought you were a producer."

He gave her opposite shoulder bone a quick rub. "You say that often, and wistfully."

She spoke into his jacket in a muffled voice. "Mixed emotions."

He stopped and took her in both arms, almost as if they were slow dancing. She returned his gesture, linking her hands at the small of his back while looking up at him (a four-inch difference in altitudes, a meeting of attitudes) with sincere, pleading eyes. "Martin?"

"Yes, dear?" He looked down, loving her eyebrows, her forehead, those serious blue eyes, that strong little face.

"Martin…" She reached up and brushed fingers lightly over his forehead, combing a few stray hairs away. He waited. She said, "This town is full of producers and…"

"And? Yes?"

She spoke hesitantly, unburdening her soul. "You know this is called the City of Angels." It was a question.

"I have found only one, and that is you."

"You are so sweet." She lingered for a moment on the last syllable, adoring him. "You bring a flavor with you of a different place…"

"Je ne sais quoi," he said helpfully. I don't know what.

She pulled her hands back, then raised them to hold his face gently between her palms. "Sometimes, Martin, this really seems like the City of Assholes."

"My CPU is processing. Please stand by."

She giggled. "I see your brain spinning behind those lovely brown eyes. Your computer will process for a long time. Let me help you understand. This is the Big City."

"I'm not going to say what rhymes with that."

"You don't need to." She placed one hand on his shoulder in a companion fashion, while stroking his ear, his cheek, his neck with the other hand so he got goosebumps. "There are producers everywhere, and they produce a lot of bullshit."

From her tone, he could read she'd had a bad experience with such a manure farmer.

She laid her cheek against his chest. "Are you real, Martin?"

He held her close, rocking her gently. "What you see is what you get. That's our product guarantee."

She made a faint mewling sound, like a kitten. "I believe you. I'm a fool, but I want to trust you."

He gently raised that small, square chin with a crooked index finger.

"Don't say it." Her eyes as she looked up suddenly were wide, and filled with drizzle. It was a rainy, cloudy, windy sky with fleeting clouds and flashes of lightning. It was a silent movie, so you could not hear thunder growling. "Just hold me." She laid her cheek back on his chest and snuggled.

He wrapped her in his embrace, and emoted all the love he could. He waited, only fanning his fingers gently over the sharp ridges of her shoulderblades. In his heart, at that moment, he knew he would love this woman for every moment in the rest of his life—whether she let him or not.

He adored her little fists, which awkwardly made kneading motions against his collarbones, as if they were mulling over thoughts.

He wanted to tell her—but she said not to say anything—that he almost hadn't come to LA but Carol Monegan and Alicia Washington had talked—no, badgered—him into it. He had come here not as a producer or an asshole, and not even expecting much, unlike those desperate young men and women in business suits at the cattle drive. He had been thinking of taking the train home rather than staying the night. He wanted to tell her that she was a sleeper, a keeper, a finder, a blinder, but he just stayed silent and slow-danced with her—almost—just rocking her gently. Was she crying? He couldn't tell. Was he in danger of having his heart stolen and destroyed by some female LA producer asshole whatever? This could work both ways.

"Sorry," she suddenly said. "Walk me to my car. Please." Her eyes were troubled, looking elsewhere, deep underwater, into the past, with a look on her face that was almost apologetic.

"Sure."

They held hands and walked slowly back along Westwood Plaza with its little trees lining the center divide, and alternating big office buildings and blocks of small shops.

He wasn't going to push. He was so totally open to whatever might happen, and she was so stratospheric that he didn't dare think he might see her again. He was prepared for it to have been a wonderful, memorable hour or two with some nice laughs and conversation.

"I have your résumé," she said as they swung their clasped hands playfully between them. "I will make sure and get that to someone in Creative who will give you a fair shot. That's the best I can do."

"That's more than I dare to ask."

"I'm not a big-shot, just a girl in an office building."

"You are the nicest thing that's happened to me here in Los Angeles."

She squeezed his hand. "You too."

Stunned, he mulled that over. Questions whizzed over his head like shooting stars on a summer night.

"I hate to cut it short, but I am due at a wedding reception in the morning."

"Not your own."

"No, Mr. Sarcastic." She jumped up on tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth, a quick moist swipe full of affection. "One of the producers."

"Oh, those."

"Yeah."

"I'm afraid to ask."

"Don't."

"That bad?"

"Yeah." They walked for a while, holding hands. "Will you come and walk with me again?"

They were just passing a store window full of magazines. A hundred beautiful, smiling women with white teeth, red lips, and wonderful eyes beamed at them.

He stopped and held her. "I would be honored. And it would be really, really cool if you could drop by San Diego sometime. I'd love to take you to the beach, feed you crabs and beer, we can see the zoo and Balboa Park…"

"You don't have anyone in your life right now, huh?"

He shook his head.

She said, "It's been a while for me too. I don't know if I am ready to open up quite yet." She patted his chest thoughtfully with her palm. "Martin."

"Mmh?"

"Oh, Martin." She sounded so wistful and forlorn.

No joking now.

He knew in his heart that his life and hers depended on being serious.

She rubbed his chest with her palm, as if erasing something at that spot in preparation for writing something new—over his heart. "What I meant was. When I said producer. I meant that you have this air about you of someone very important and very sincere. I think I had a crush on you from the first moment I saw you and you were looking at me like that."

"Me too."

"Looking at me in that tone of voice," she joked, but faintly.

He took her hands in his and gently squeezed to reassure her—and himself. She squeezed back. Her eyes looked up into his.

She asked, "You're going back tonight?"

He nodded, reluctantly. "Yes." He wanted to stay with her, and the idea of being here in LA alone, separated from her, was not something he wanted to imagine. Better to get home, on familiar turf, catch his breath, gather his thoughts (and his sanity), and reset. Reboot.

"I hope we see each other again," she said.

"I believe we will. I want to."

"I do too."

He walked her to her car, where they stood for a time embracing and deeply kissing. He thought making love with her would be like this—the perfect fit of their mouths together, their tongues wriggling with pleasure and passion as they sought each other in the intimacy of that liquid, mucous environment, that sharing of so much.

He waved, forlorn and heroic, as she drove away in the white VW Beetle.

Was that shock on her face, were those tears, was that a look of loss? Or was it hope?

He called for an Uber and told the middle-aged driver, a man with gray hair and beard stubble, to drop him off at the train station. It would be a long, thoughtful ride south along the sea, amid a blur of city lights like in Santa Monica and Long Beach, Dana Point and San Clemente, and ultimately San Diego.

The thing he'd wanted to say to her—but didn't get a chance to—was, I came here expecting nothing, and you gave me the world. Even if we never see each other again, you gave me two wonderful hours that recharged the batteries of my soul. I will never forget you. But I hope I don't need to. Just call, and I'll drive on up there. It's just two hours and some change, after all. Just two little hours separating us—not even one full tank of gas or need to stop for coffee… so please call if you feel like it. I do.

As Martin dozed on the train, he half expected a sweet little text message or something maybe like Miss you already.

Nothing came. His cell phone stayed dead.

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Copyright © 2016 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.